Forget Bake Off... We Do Carve Off!

Ruby & Diamond Ring Remodel

We finally finished our first ever father-daughter carve off at just after 11pm one Monday night, despite the sore eyes, mushed brain and the late night it was undoubtedly a lovely new experience to sculpt, cut back and file wax to form a custom-made ring.

​Between our benches lay dads initial ring remodel design and side by side we challenged ourselves to carve the same ring but how we each thought it should look. 

As first experiences of wax carving go, I quite enjoyed it!
​That’s not to say that I didn’t find it really difficult, especially when trying to create an equal thickness of metal around each stone for setting.
​This became trickier upon realising that the old cut diamonds were different shapes and depths, therefore allowing for each stone depth but also trying to make it look elegant whilst being organically shaped was an additional challenge.

Fortunately, dad overcame this hurdle quicker than I and within the time frame he definitely won the contest, and rightly so as I thought his version of the ring was cleaner and looked more fluid and feminine in comparison.

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Penguin Brooch

​The ring wax carving experience came just at the right time, because soon after I was asked to create a brooch resembling a South African Cape Penguin for our Whitstable Harbour Masters Silver Wedding Anniversary gift. 

​Armed with a methylated sprit burner, wax and various carving tools, I built up the shape of the penguin by depositing molten wax instead of cutting back. This is the way dad prefers to create a casting pattern, but I think I might practice with the cutting back method for any upcoming projects to see which style suits me best. 

The challenge for me was creating a 3-dimensional piece from a 2-dimensional image.
In particular, imagining the penguin’s hollows and making his general shape realistic in terms of not making his high points too raised and alternatively his hollows too low. 
​Another difficulty was trying to create a black and white penguin have distinguishable markings in silver.

It was at this point we decided to mark his dark areas with small strokes of my trusty seating burr to give the illusion of feathers, in turn also giving him texture. However I was given strict instruction to start from the bottom, in order to allow the feathers to lay the way they should.